Owen took Charlie’s notebooks with him when he left the shop, letting Mars in to settle down in his spot by the register for the night before closing the door behind him. His grandmother greeted him with a knowing smile when he walked into the cottage.
“I can see from your happy glow that you’ve had a lovely time with Mari today,” Mathilda said. “So there’s no need to give me any details. Unless they’re particularly juicy ones, that is.”
Owen rolled his eyes. His grandmother might write mysteries for a living, but there was nothing she loved more than a good romance. Particularly the juicy parts. She’d tried to write a romance herself, she’d once told him, but she’d quickly realized she was much better at murdering people on the page and sending in her fictional sleuths to solve the crime.
“It was a brilliant day,” he confirmed. “Unfortunately, however, things aren’t quite as simple as I wish they could be.”
Mathilda didn’t look surprised. “There’s no need to say any more than you’re comfortable with, of course, but it’s not difficult for me to guess that Mari’s family in California might not be thrilled to have her here.” When he gave a small nod to indicate that she was on the right track, she gave him a smile of understanding. “I know it may seem difficult to believe this now, but everything is going to work out. I feel it in my bones. It is what I’ve always felt, which was a big part of why I worked so hard to change Charlie’s mind while he was alive. I’m afraid, however, that all of us have a tendency to build up our worries and fears inside our heads until we’re paralyzed by them. Promise me you won’t let that happen with Mari. I’d much rather that you held tight to hope, no matter what.”
“Not to worry, Gran, where Mari is concerned, there’s no way I’d ever let myself lose hope.” He held up Charlie’s notebooks. “I’m going to scan these tonight so that I can get the pages off to publishers first thing in the morning. I’d like to get a deal for them, both to honor Charlie’s talent—and also to help Mari with the bookshop’s bottom line.”
Mathilda’s face lit up. “What a wonderful idea. I’d be happy to write a foreword to the books, if you think there would be any interest in that.”
“Are you kidding, Gran? Of course there will be interest. I’ll be sure to mention it in my email to the publishers.”
“How about a cuppa before you get to work?”
“Thanks, but I’d like to scan the stories immediately. If there’s any chance of a book deal in the near future, and by near I’m talking a matter of days, it will mean a lot for Mari’s chances of keeping the bookshop afloat. In fact, instead of bringing her by Mum and Dad’s for Sunday roast, it would be so much better if we had lunch in the shop. That way, everyone can pitch in once we’ve eaten.”
“Yet another brilliant idea.” Mathilda always knew how to make him feel good. She was the best boss he’d ever had. He had been out of his mind to have lunch with the streaming company that day. “Would you like me to call your mother to make the arrangements?”
“That would be great, Gran.” He gathered up the notebooks, then gave her a kiss on the cheek. “See you in the morning.”
* * *
As Mathilda watched her grandson head back into his office, she was ecstatic that he had finally found happiness. And true love.
Mathilda could still remember those heady days when she had fallen for Benedict. She’d been hurrying through the Cecil Court shops in Mayfair—a street that, post-Harry Potter, everyone claimed looked just like Diagon Alley. She’d been too excited about the chance to buy a new book from her favorite author to pay any attention to where she was going and had crashed headlong into Benedict. Even then, she had barely stopped to look up in her haste to lose herself in a wonderful new book.
But Benedict had noticed her. And once she’d finished paying for her book, she’d found him waiting outside. Her heart had skipped a beat, and she’d known that he was the one she was meant to be with.
Perhaps it had to do with the fact that he was holding a newly purchased copy of A Dance to the Music of Time. Anyone who liked the work of Anthony Powell couldn’t be bad. What’s more, Benedict was so delightful to look at. And she was just shallow enough to care.
When she was twenty-one, her parents had already begun to despair that she might forever be on the shelf, perfectly happy to while away her days reading books and her evenings writing stories she wasn’t sure what to do with, but knew she had to tell anyway.
With the encouragement of her parents, and after a wonderful courtship that had made her eyes as bright as Mari’s were when she looked at Owen, Mathilda and Benedict were married. Nine months later they had Penny.
Though Mathilda continued to write when she had a chance, those chances came few and far between with three more children in rapid succession. She enjoyed raising her children, but it had been extremely difficult to collect her thoughts during so many nearly sleepless nights with them.
It wasn’t until she was fifty years old, and her brood were out of the house and living their own lives, that she finally turned her focus to writing in a serious way. By then, she had read countless mysteries. She always kept a book with her—in her bag, by her bedside, in the sitting room, in the kitchen, in the car. By the time she sat down to begin writing the first book in The Bookshop on the River series, she had a fairly good idea of the kind of story she wanted to tell.
It helped that she was so inspired by the environment that Charlie had created at Elderflower Island Books. There was nowhere else she could imagine setting her mysteries. And though the main protagonists were a rather close comparison to Charlie and herself—a man and a woman who were the best of friends, and nothing more, but who enjoyed each other’s company greatly, especially as they solved the latest murder in their part of the world—she refused to ever say for sure whether or not she had modeled her heroine and hero on the two of them.
Now, all these years later, Charlie’s daughter and her grandson had found each other. Mathilda couldn’t be more pleased, even if the going was a bit rockier than she would’ve liked. She suspected Charlie’s ex-wife had deep reservations about her daughter’s being here and taking on Charlie’s legacy. And why wouldn’t she, considering it was due to his negligence—and his drinking—that Mari’s mother had nearly lost the person most precious to her.
And yet…
There came a time in everyone’s life when one had to forgive. When one had to look at the past and accept it for what it was, without letting it continue to rule the future.
Mathilda understood that well, better than any of her children, or grandchildren, would ever suspect. Benedict had been a good man. But not a perfect one. They’d been married ten years when she found out about his affair.
She confronted him, of course. She wasn’t a shrinking violet, and she informed him that she was leaving him and planned to file for primary custody of the children, as well. He’d pleaded with her not to leave and vowed never to betray her again.
Mathilda had made the difficult decision not only to believe him, but to move forward without regret, if at all possible. And in the end, against all odds, he’d kept his vow, until he passed away of a heart attack at seventy.
She knew things didn’t always work out so well. Look at her granddaughter Fiona. Mathilda didn’t trust her snake of a husband one bit. Though she had no proof, she suspected he’d had more than one affair. And were Fiona to find out and confront him, Mathilda very much doubted that any vows Lewis might make about changing his ways would be believable.
Forcefully pushing thoughts of the man who didn’t deserve her oldest granddaughter out of her head, Mathilda decided she would go to sleep happy in the knowledge that Owen and Mari had found each other. She, along with everyone else in the family, would help out with the bookshop in whatever ways they could to make sure that Mari was able to stay.
Before heading into her bedroom, Mathilda called her daughter, Penny. “Hello, darling. Owen and I have a suggestion for a slight change to tomorrow’s lunch, one we hope you’ll agree is a very fine idea indeed.”